Empty
by Rebel-Aquarius
Summary: Inside, she is empty...everything is pointless now...


_So…is this how it ends? After all these years, has it finally led to this?_

Fading light stretched out like long, thin fingers, splayed across the floor, as though offering to pull the trigger. Boomer watched them flicker, appearing and disappearing with ease. If only life were that simple…

But there was one advantage to life: you could create it, bring it into being, nurturing it and letting it grow to the fullest extent…or you could end it, with one, fast motion; you could break it, annihilate it, shatter it to mere fragments and pieces until there wasn't anything left to destroy…

And the Gods had given her that choice. Almost as if on cue, her index finger, the one held poised above the trigger of the gun, quivered slightly, in fear and in anticipation.

No one would have ever guessed that Sharon, _the_ Sharon Valeri was suicidal. No one had listened if she claimed she was going insane. No one would have believed her if she announced her suspicions that she was not a human, but a Cylon.

Cylon. The word seemed to reverberate in her mind. Cylone. Enemy. Killer. She had spent her entire life learning and following that knowledge, as though it were a religion.

And now the truth came out: She was one of them. She always had been, and she always would be.

But her gaze, never failing, returned to the gun.

_Nothing lasts forever._

It was true. The end was inevitable, whether you were a human or a machine; eventually the end came, one way or another.

_So why not end it now?_

One day she would die, by her hand or someone else's. Would it make a difference if she died now? Probably not…

The Cylons could not feel, could not love. Her absence wouldn't be noticed. She was only a pawn; and anyway, she thought bitterly, they could just make another copy. Her life had no value to them. She was replaceable.

As for the members of Galactica? She could think of some of her friends that would mourn her loss, but for how long? How long would it be, until they discovered that she had been a traitor? And then who would care? No one. Absolutely no one.

That was probably what was making her heart ache so badly…

Yet-

Who were her friends? Starbuck, or Apollo, or-? Sure they would say they were, but was that because they didn't know the truth? Was that why the Cylons sought to destroy mankind? Because they were a narrow minded and shallow race, focused only on their own greatness, or on how to achieve it?

But she had always thought of herself as one of them, had always beamed with pride whenever civilians had called her, "a true pilot, pride of the human race and Gods above."

Boomer set the gun down on her bunk and crossed to a nearby mirror hanging on the wall, staring hard at the reflection that it offered. A young woman, with straight looking hair…and dark eyes that once seemed a lot brighter, perhaps in another lifetime.

They were dull looking now. Odd, how the turmoil you felt inside always seemed to show on the outside, no matter how hard you struggled to hide it. People had noticed too. That was the problem with this ship: nothing went unnoticed.

Just yesterday, she had noticed Cally watching her (though probably on one of the "Chief's" orders.) The Commander had mentioned that she looked tired, and held her back from a mission the she would have originally been on. Even Starbuck, one of her closest companions, had given her a worried side glance that morning in the mess.

These people…that she had cared about, those who she relied on every day on a regular basis…they were in danger. They needed to be protected from _her_."

_Now's the time to do it._

Boomer, hands trembling slightly, aimed the gun carefully, letting the very tip enter her mouth.

_Let go._

She had to save them! As long as she continued to exist, as long as she stayed here, the people aboard were as good as dead. Who knew what could happen? All it would take was a small movement of the finger, a click of the trigger, and innocent blood would be on her hands.

But…why should she care? She was a machine. And machines don't feel. Machines cannot love, or hate, or cry, even though hot tears were spilling from her eyes at that very moment.

_No matter how real you feel, no matter how much you'd like to believe it isn't so, you are not a human. You are metal, twisted only to **appear** as though you are something that you are not. You are a machine. You have no soul. Inside, you are **empty.**_

"Empty…"


End file.
